Problems Searching for Published Printers by Server Name (278504)

SUMMARY

When attempting to locate a printer published in the Active Directory, you will not be able to find it by searching for all printers on a given server. However, you can view the printer when you use "Active Directory Users and Computers". For example, if the printer is listed as "Myserver-Myprinter" in Active Directory Users and computers, a search for printers with Myserver* does not return any results. A search of "myprinter*" would find the printer.

MORE INFORMATION

All printers that are published in the Active directory are listed in "Active Directory Users and Computers" as SERVER-SHARE. To locate the printer by name, search by using the printer name and not the server name. If you manually published the printer, it has the same name as the share and will be located in the organizational unit where it was published. If the printer is on a Windows 2000-based computer, it was automatically published and the printer has the same name as the print queue and not the share name. Note that when you change the name of the queue, the published name is not changed in Active Directory. To see an automatically published printer in "Active Directory Users and Computers" you will need to enable "Users, Groups, and Computers as containers" from the View menu. Then locate the computer object and select it on the left pane. Any published printers will appear on the right pane as "SERVER-printer."

For additional information about how to publish a printer, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

234619 Publishing a Printer in Windows 2000 Active Directory